Congress To Stage Countrywide Protests Against Fuel Hike

Congress is set to stage a countrywide stir against the rising prices of diesel and petrol in the country. The grand old party has decided to take on the Narendra Modi government at the Centre on the issue of hike in fuel prices at a time when the country was reeling under the onslaught of coronavirus pandemic and a major border crisis with China.

The Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted to say that the Centre had hiked fuel by Rs.9.17 and diesel by Rs.1 1.14 per litre over a period of 23 days. In doing so, he pointed out that the Centre and Rs.1, 30,000 additionally. He further pointed out that in Delhi diesel has now become costlier than petrol. In 73 years petrol and diesel are now at their highest ever, Surjewala said.

The Congress sees an opportunity in the fuel hike to attack the Narendra Modi government, an issue on which it is likely to find more appeal as opposed to its attack on the India-China border row. Congress leader and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi has of late, been hitting out at the Centre over tensions on the border with China in the Galwan Valley of Eastern Ladakh. The Congress leader has been posing questions to PM Modi regularly on whether land had been ceded to China on the border. However, Rahul Gandhi's remarks and posers to the Modi government found few takers in the opposition.

In fact, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar in an oblique jibe at Rahul Gandhi and the Congress, remarked that India had lost 43,000 sq km to China in the 1962 conflict. He also observed that national security issues should not be politicised.

The Congress stir on the fuel hike is likely to strike a chord with the masses in view of the fact that while international crude prices have dropped sharply, the Modi government has been hiking the prices of petrol and diesel in the domestic market.